What goes in the glass

A cold fountain soda and a hot latte share almost nothing on the page, but underneath both of them sit the same handful of decisions, and the introduction listed them in one paragraph. This page is that paragraph taken apart, one role at a time, so nothing further into the book has to explain itself from scratch.

The base is the first decision, and it is a fork rather than a list to choose from. It runs hot or cold, and if cold, fizzy or still, and either way, with dairy or without it. One box on that fork stays permanently empty: there is no hot, fizzy base anywhere in this book, because carbon dioxide leaves a drink faster the warmer it gets and a hot drink will not hold it at all, so a reader will not find one by looking harder.

Sweetener and creamer are not forks. They sit on top of whatever the base decision already produced, added rather than chosen between, which is why the same flavoured syrup works stirred through a hot latte and poured under a cold soda, and why a flavoured cream finishes a milkshake the same way it finishes a dirty soda.

Alcohol behaves differently again. It is not a layer riding on the base, it is a gate, and what that gate does belongs to After Hours, the chapter that sits behind a sign-in, not to this map.

Garnish sits apart from all of it. It is a New Zealand confectionery from the Carousel range, served beside the finished glass rather than poured into it. Every drink recipe in this book names the one that suits it, which is where that choice belongs rather than here.

A dirty soda is a soda with a cream or a foam laid on top of it, and that is the whole of the word: the cream is what makes it dirty. Jerking is the other half, the drop or the syrup that sets what the glass tastes of, and it can sit in the soda, in the cream, or in both, so a soda can be dirty without being jerked and jerked without being dirty. How to make a dirty soda walks through the build, over a full glass of ice, with the cream left where it lands.

Whichever of those paths a drink takes, hot or cold, with alcohol or without, the drop is on every one of them, and only where in the pour it lands changes: it goes into the drink while the drink is still being built, and where there is milk or cream, into the watery part first. The bottle's direction is one drop for every 150 ml in the glass, rounded to a whole drop, so a 250 ml glass or a 330 ml can takes two and a 500 ml can three, and that is a place to start rather than a count to stop at. How to use the drops covers where it goes in and what moves that number. Base, sweetener, creamer and alcohol are not four separate choices a reader picks one from each of. They are four different ways of getting the same drop into a glass, and the diagram below is built to show exactly that.

The roles

• Ice optional, never in a hot drink
• Base the fork
• Alcohol the gate
• Sweetener rides on the base
• Settle a pause, not an ingredient
• Creamer finishes on top
• Garnish beside the glass, not in it

What goes in each glass

Bands are drawn top down, the way they actually read once a drink is finished, not the order it was poured in. Whichever single band is carrying the drop in that build is marked with a red ring, since it is a different one depending on which vehicle is doing the carrying.

• Fountain soda

  one tall glass

  • BaseCola, lemonade, ginger beer, soda water

• Dirty soda

  one tall glass

  • CreamerFlavoured cream or a foam, laid on the surface and left there
  • Let the fizz settle
  • SweetenerFlavoured syrup, in the glass first, if the soda is jerked with one
  • BaseThe soda, poured over from a little height
  • IceA full glass of it, under everything

• Hot barista drink

  one cup

  • BaseFlat white, latte, chai or hot chocolate

• Iced barista drink

  one tall glass

  • BaseIced latte or cold brew, poured over
  • IceA full glass, under the pour

• Milkshake or thickshake

  one milkshake, or one thickshake

  • BaseMilk and ice cream, blended together

• Protein shake

  one shake

  • BaseProtein powder and milk, blended together

• Flavoured syrup

  a batch, simple or rich, not a single glass

  • SweetenerSugar and water, equal weights for simple or two to one for rich, with 5 ml of flavour to a 400 ml batch, measured rather than counted, the way How to make a flavoured syrup sets out

• Flavoured cream

  a batch, spooned onto other drinks

  • CreamerCream with the flavoured syrup stirred through, then whisked, shaken or charged, the method in How to make dirty soda creams and foams

• Foam

  one drink at a time, frothed to pour on top

  • CreamerMilk with a drop stirred through, then frothed, cold for an iced drink or warm for a hot one, soy, oat or almond included, per How to make dirty soda creams and foams

Where alcohol takes the gate instead of a soft base, those builds live in After Hours, and that whole chapter sits behind a sign-in.

The order it goes in

The stack above shows what ends up in the glass, not the order it went in to get there. One rule holds across every carbonated build in this book: the soda is the last thing poured, slowest and stirred least, because everything else is already combined by the time it arrives, and anything laid on top waits for the fizz to settle.

Once the order is set, Behind the bar carries one bottle through a full shift: into a glass, into a syrup, into a charged cream, into a long drink. And the Basedrop Builder draws any of the glasses above for the size you are pouring, drops counted and the order written out.